Sir Isaac Pitman
Sir Isaac Pitman, (1813-97). British educator and inventor of a system of shorthand writing. The system, Published as The Stenographic Sound Hand, was invented by Pitman in 1837. It was based on phonetic principles and Pitman founded the Phonetic Journal to promote it. His grandson James (1901— ) invented a new alphabet to facilitate the learning of reading. Called the Initial Teaching Alphabet, it consists of 44 letters that can be -used to spell words according to consistent phonetic rules.